Obama invites Paul Ryan to lunch

President Barack Obama --seeking to sell Republicans on a revival of "grand bargain" talks -- has invited 2012 GOP veep candidate Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), the chairman of the House Budget Committee, over to the White House for lunch on Thursday, POLITICO has learned.

Obama, who has always regarded Ryan as one of the leading intellectual forces of the opposition, has also invited the committee's ranking member Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.). The idea for the chat-and-chew came during an extended phone conversation between Obama and Ryan earlier this week.

The meeting comes hours after the president supped with a handful of GOP senators at the Jefferson Hotel near the White House, a move that marked an abrupt shift from his post-election "outside" strategy" intended to pressure Republicans to accept new revenue increases as part of any new budget deal through a series of campaign-style events.

By speaking directly with Ryan, Obama is hoping to enlist a powerful ally in convincing leadership to abandon its insistence on subjecting all future measures on the debt, deficit, taxes and entitlement reform to "regular order," the tortuous committee process dominated by party conservatives, according to a person close to the process.

Ryan's new blueprint, expected to be released within days, is expected to contain a similar mix of cuts, a voucher-like proposal for Medicare recipients currently 55 or younger -- but none of the new revenue-producing tax reforms Obama wants.